- How to Lose a War by Frank Rich, New York Times
- How to Be Tough on Terrorism by Robert B. Reich, American Prospect
- The Wrong Strategy by William Kristol, The Weekly Standard
- With Powers Like These, Can Repression Be Far Behind? by Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times
- The Daily Howler (latest dispatches) by Bob Somerby
The articles I recommend above are about current events. I have one I'd like to recommend to you that is somewhat out of date but when I first read it in 1996, it made a very big impression on me. It concerns Senator John McCain and I'd like to think that the portrait it presents of him is accurate and still valid…but I have to admit that some of his actions and statements in the last few years have caused me to wonder. Anyway, I recently found it on-line and here's the link to it. If you don't have time to read it all, read at least as far as this passage, which had a major impact on me…
Here, [McCain] pauses, and I figure he's finished. But he's groping behind his aviator sunglasses for the point of his anecdote — that forgiveness is ultimately less self-destructive than the bitter desire for vengeance. Or perhaps that there is no such thing as vengeance.
I do not believe that forgiveness is always preferable or even possible. But this article set me off on a lot of thinking on the topic and that, in turn, has led to a belief that, more often than we might like to think, vengeance is a form of self-deception and that the thirst for it can be a major form of self-destruction.
In the coming months, we're going to see some permutation of this discussion across the country. An awful lot of folks are revved-up and horny for the moment we can celebrate that we have avenged the attacks of 9/11 and "gotten even." Right now, they don't want to hear that bombing the hell out of The Enemy is anything but right and proper. They don't even want to hear any explanations of why other countries might not love us, as they might lessen the Good Guy/Bad Guy karma of it all. I think we're all going to be giving the concept of "getting even" a lot of consideration.
By the way: If you read the article I recommend, you might want to also read this news item which sadly buttons the story.